prior to the president's statement, the gloomy outlook for a deal was evident on wall street. the dow fail 158 points or 1.2% to settle at 12,938. fifth straight day of decline on the street. i would like to bring in david nakamura of "the washington post" and david jackson of "usa today." how conscious are our leaders in d.c. of the ripple effect this could have and how conscious are consumers of what might be about to hit them? >> well, the white house is very conscious of it it. they may have the political advantage of this deal, but the fiscal cliff could tip the country back into a recession. consumers are worried they'll start to pick up on the news and once it hits their paychecks they'll definitely feel it. >> do you think the consumers are paying as close attention as we'd like to think that they are. i think they are even though it's holiday time and going back to businesses and i was at the white house when president obama had a series of businesses with small business and big business owners and all of them had the same message. we want consumer confidence to remai